The present invention is directed to shoes and, in particular, to a shoe having a unidirectional air transfer system which allows the inner air of the shoe to pass to the outer side of the shoe without letting the exterior air or liquid penetrate into the shoe.
The unidirectional air transfer system includes a set of components providing a breathable feature to the shoe, resulting in exceptional comfort for the user.
More specifically, the unidirectional air transfer system includes one or more sets of membranes, each one being positioned between two tissues, forming a "sandwich". Each set of the unidirectional air transfer system includes a central membrane having a tissue on opposite sides thereof.
Each shoe can use one or more of these sets composed of the referred to membrane and the two tissues, which may be of similar or different nature.
Generally, such sets, hereinafter referred to as unidirectional air transfer sets, tissue-membrane-tissue sets or, simply, T-M-T sets, are mounted within the shoe the shoe sole, i.e., parallel to the shoe sole and to the sole of the user's foot or foot sole, and do not occupy necessarily the whole region of the user's foot sole or the shoe sole.
Coincident with the region in the shoe where a T-M-T set is mounted, the external sole and all other sole components such as, for example, inner soles, insoles, etc., are provided with bores or openings to direct air through the T-M-T set thereby enabling air to escape from the interior of the shoe to the outside thereof.
Although the present inventive concept can be applied to any kind of shoe, the invention is being explained and described by way of a sport shoe.
The invention will be better understood as the appended drawings, represented by figures briefly described as follows, are analyzed in conjunction with the specification text.